The legislative storm over the Clinton administration’s defiance of a law requiring that the U.S. embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is intensifying. But there are also indications that lawmakers, responding to Prime Minister Ehud Barak&

08/25/2009

James Besser

Washington Correspondent

Several pieces of legislation are in the hopper and letters criticizing the administration’s position are flying down Pennsylvania Avenue, but lawmakers who threatened to strip away the president’s authority to waive penalties under the original Jerusalem Embassy Act have apparently decided to hold their fire.

Meeting with Jewish members of Congress last week, Barak said a decision to force the embassy move now could have implications for the peace process he is trying to revive.

The Clinton administration is pulling out all the stops this week to provide Prime Minister Ehud Barak with a warm Washington welcome intended to signal a new and more congenial bilateral atmosphere.

07/16/1999

James Besser

Washington Correspondent

The Clinton administration is pulling out all the stops this week to provide Prime Minister Ehud Barak with a warm Washington welcome intended to signal a new and more congenial bilateral atmosphere.
Barak, while pleased with the symbolic thaw, has some hard-edged items on his agenda — including his desire to preempt the Israeli politicians who are already working Congress to stir up an anti-Barak, anti-administration backwash.

The peace process may be in limbo until incoming Prime Minister Ehud Barak forms his government and sets some policy, but that hasn’t stopped Congress from huffing and puffing on Mideast issues.

06/18/1999

James Besser

Washington Correspondent

The peace process may be in limbo until incoming Prime Minister Ehud Barak forms his government and sets some policy, but that hasn’t stopped Congress from huffing and puffing on Mideast issues.
Resolutions have recently been introduced in both Houses demanding the extradition of Palestinians accused of killing Americans.

Negotiations over the future of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps in Poland could begin in a matter of weeks now that hundreds of crosses erected by Polish Catholic extremists have been removed, according to the chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and the head of the coalition negotiating with the government in Warsaw.

This weekend’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference will feature all the usual elements of the annual pro-Israel extravaganza: congressional and administration machers by the score, foreign diplomats, on-the-make politicians and more than 900 charged-up AIPACers and 600 college students.
But the mood may be dampened by a new challenge facing the powerful lobby group: how to adjust to a new Labor government in Israel that includes officials who have harshly criticized AIPAC for a pro-Likud tilt.

That squeak audible over Washington this week was the sound of the pro-Israel lobby turning on a dime. Stung by criticism by some Labor leaders of a longstanding pro-Likud tilt, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), began a quick readjustment at this week’s annual policy conference in Washington.
“What you’re hearing is an organization adapting to a new environment,” said Gary Polland, a longtime AIPAC activist from Texas who objected to the softening of some traditional AIPAC positions.

Administration officials are straining to keep up their public facade of impartiality as the election campaign in Israel heads toward a noisy conclusion. But just below the surface are mounting concerns about the impact of a victory by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the promised U.S. effort to revive the Israeli-Palestinian talks — and a growing realization that even a victory by his chief opponent, Labor leader Ehud Barak, is no guarantee that a new U.S. initiative will advance quickly.

The broad-based coalition government handcrafted by Prime Minister Ehud Barak to win support for his peace initiatives began to unravel this week even as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were slated to resume talks Monday in Washington following a two-week hiatus caused by Palestinian street rioting.

In meetings with President Bill Clinton in Washington this week, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is expected to lay out his vision for cementing peace treaties with the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. The summit follows a week of confidence-building, ice-breaking meetings with Arab leaders that generated high expectations.
Clinton has said he has his own peace proposals, and the two men are expected to try to crystallize them all when they meet again Monday with their staffs in attendance.